Karnataka launches investments tracking mechanism

Projects between Rs 100 - 1,000 cr will be tracked online

Karnataka has launched a portal to track investment projects online. Through this portal, the government will monitor projects with investments above Rs 100 crore.

This portal is a replica of similar system followed by the Centre to track projects worth Rs 1,000 crore and above. The Project Monitoring Group at the Cabinet Committee on Investments, Government of India, has been facilitating clearances for large projects which are stuck for want of various clearances through its online portal.

Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has been playing an important role in facilitating the process. In this context, we are pleased to inform you a similar online projects tracking mechanism is now being adopted by the Government of Karnataka to track projects above Rs 100 crore.

Kaushik Mukherjee, Chief Secretary, Government of Karnataka, at a programme jointly organised by the Commerce and Industries Department, Government of Karnataka, Project Monitoring Group (PMG) at the Cabinet Committee on Investments (CCI), Government of India, and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), today launched the portal.

Speaking on the occasion, Anil Swarup, additional secretary, and head, PMG, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India, said the industries can upload their problems and grievances on the portal at both the Central and state government level and their issues would be addressed on priority.

The PMG was created by former prime minister Manmohan Singh in June 2013 to fast track stalled investment projects both public and private, and would pro-actively pursue them so that these investment projects are commissioned on time.

The Administrative Ministries, in consultation with the Finance Ministry, and the Finance Ministry on its own also were tasked with the identification of such priority projects. The Cabinet Secretariat was directed to hold a meeting with Chief Secretaries of States to have state governments on board with this new mechanism.

As a result, six state governments including Karnataka government have set up their own portals.

Under this new mechanism, private entrepreneurs can register to get the login credentials. Thereafter, project details can be submitted along with the bottlenecks / issues to the sponsoring ministry or department. Sponsoring ministry will review the project details submitted by private entrepreneurs and recommend the project to the CCI Cell at the Cabinet Secretariat.

Ministries or departments can reject a project submitted by private entrepreneur if it does not contain valid information. These rejected projects will automatically come to CCI Cell at Cabinet Secretariat for final decision. Sponsoring ministry can also directly submit projects with bottlenecks / issues to CCI Cell. Once the sponsoring ministries recommend the projects, the issues / bottlenecks along with the project details will automatically go to the recipient ministry or department for their comment or action.